German Net Researchers Apply LED Light in 800 Mbit/s Networking

Networking researchers from the Fraunhofer Institute for Telecommunications, Heinrich Hertz Institute HHI in Berlin, Germany have been using LED lights to distribute HD videos to portable devices such as smartphones and notebooks, using a system that can join WiFi and PowerLine networks and shuttling high-speed data around home and/or office.

The optical WLAN co-opts white LEDs used for regular illumination to transmit data at up to 100 Mbit/s, by flickering it more rapidly than the human eye can see. It relies on normal LEDs and a simple modulator to control the flickering – each have a roughly 90 square foot range, while any gadget wanting to receive the signal is outfitted with a simple photo diode.

They suggest it would work best as a companion to, rather than a replacement for, existing WiFi, 3G or other methods.

According to the researchers, boosting transmission speed is the next step, with researchers working on increasing the data rate eightfold.